The Guns Of Navarone

Gregson Centre, Lancaster
3rd July 2004

Reviewed by Reza Mills

The band's name has two different sources; one is from a 1961 film of the same name starring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Richard Harris, who play a small team of commandos that take on the perilous mission of destroying two giant cannons that prevent the rescue of 2,000 British troops. during WWII. The second source more significantly, is from one of the best selling ska singles in history by The Skatalites.

Arriving at the Gregson at around 8, I am accompanied by both my sister and my brother-in-law. We get a couple of beers in and await the start of the gig. As 8.30 approaches, I decide to have my obligatory chat with the band and meet up with guitarist Gordon. I talk to him about what we are to expect from the band as well as their musical influences. Whilst we're talking I notice that most of the equipment isn't even set up yet and that only 3 or so members of the band are actually present. I ask Gordon when we can expect everything to kick off and I learn that they are not due on for at least another half an hour to an hour! (Their publicity definitely said 8.30pm - ed) Eventually after 5 or 10 minutes his mobile goes off and I decide to leave him to it. I go back to the main bar and rejoin my companions.

After The Ghettobillies outstanding performance the other night my expectations were high to say the least and I was looking forward to skanking along to the sounds of The Guns'. When it gets to about 9.15 we all venture off to the gig and await the performance. And wait. And wait. 15 minutes passes and the drums are only just being set up. Pete, one of the band, delights us with the sound of his accordion, to try and warm us up. After about half an hour of accordion music, the band finally start their set at around 10.00, at least an hour and a half late.

By the time they do get going I have already grown quite annoyed with the lack of punctuality and professionalism displayed by the band. From my conversation with Gordon earlier I learnt that these guys don't play together that often mainly because people don't tend to arrive at the time they're supposed to for rehearsals. He also mentioned that they play together for fun (which explains why they play mostly covers) and have no real inclination to turn professional. Fair enough, not every band has the desire to turn professional. However whether you are a covers band playing for fun, or a band looking to get signed, there is a standard of musical professionalism to be upheld. Nonetheless despite this annoyance I decide to review their performance with unprejudiced heart and mind.

As the band began playing I observed that there were 8 members in the group. There's Chas the keyboard player, Gordon the guitarist, A drummer sitting in called Mark, Rick playing double bass and accordion man Pete who makes up one of the brass section. There are also 3 further members of the brass section whose names escape me.

The type of music they play is 60's style ska and rocksteady, but leaning more towards the style of the latter. Rocksteady for those of you who are unfamiliar, developed out of ska in the 1960's. In it's simplest form, it is half-speed ska with prominent bass. It has a relaxed beat and served as a forerunner to Reggae. This is not the manic style of ska characterised by Madness and their ilk in the 1980's, nor the ska-punk of the 1990's.

The first thing that I notice is that there are no vocals indicating that this is primarily an instrumental group. Chas would later profess that this was their first gig of the year and this is nowhere more evident than in their performance. The band though undoubtedly talented musicians seem quite nervous and under-rehearsed, not entirely surprising considering the amount of gigs they have played the last couple of years. They didn't seem very tight and certainly didn't seem to be gelling together as a cohesive unit.

The atmosphere seemed to reflect this as well as you could virtually count the amount of people present on both hands! (Although it would fill up a bit more later on). The songs passed by at a fairly slow pace, which instead of helping to set the mood, evolved into one long drawn out jamming session. The songs were pretty indistinguishable from one another, and the lack of variety and tempo made the enjoyment of the gig fairly difficult.

There definitely seemed to be a lack of fire or passion in the musicians' collective bellies. This seemed to be nowhere more apparent than Guitarist Gordon sitting behind the brass section, obscured and out of sight of the audience, twiddling away with what seemed to be a distinct lack of interest. However being the eternal optimist I was determined to stick it out and see if things could pick up in the second set.

For the first couple of songs in the second half, things seemed promising. It looked like the band had suddenly come to life and decided they wanted to play. They seemed to be a little more upbeat and looked like they were really trying at last. There even seemed to be some variety in the music. Unfortunately this was not to last, and by the 3rd song they had slowed down again to a snail's pace that seemed a real shame as things seemed to be picking up quite nicely.

The crowd didn't seem to agree with me though, as there was quite a sizable amount of people on the dancefloor by this stage. But one could attribute this to people wanting to have a good time on a Saturday night, no matter what the music or the performance. Fortunately I had to leave some 15 or so minutes before the end so I could get a lift home from my sister, but judging hopefully from what can only be described as an off-night for The Guns', it was not a minute too soon.

Reza Mills